Pressure vessel



June 21, 1966 J. MERCIER ETAL PRESSURE VESSEL Filed June 1, 1964 INVENTORS Jffl/V M52 7 E2 41 2% g/mi 9 77M ATTORNEYS United States Patent 3,256,911 PRESSURE VESSEL Jean Mercier and Jacques H. Mercier, New York, N.Y.; said Jacques H. Mercier assignor to Mercier Olaer Pat! ent Corporation, Wilmington, Del., a corporation of Delaware Filed June 1, 1964, Ser. No. 371,584 1 Claim. (Cl. 13830) This invention relates to the art of pressure vessels of the type having a deformable partition interveningbetween the gas and oil port thereof and more particularly to the mount for said partition.

It is among the objects of the invention to provide a pressure vessel of the above type which may readily be fabricated at relatively low cost and may readily be assembled with assurance that a dependable seal will be provided to prevent leakage of both the oil and gas in the pressure vessel even with long continuous use thereof.

According to the invention, these objects are accomplished by the arrangement and combination of elements hereinafter described and more particularly recited in the claims.

This application is a continuation impart of copending application Serial No. 195,787, filed May 18, 1962, now abandoned.

In the accompanying drawings in which is shown one of various possible embodiments of the several features of the invention,

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of the pressure vessel according to the invention,

FIG. 2 is a detail view of the periphery of the deformable partition, and

FIG. 3 is a detail view of the periphery of the partition mounted on the closure member before it is positioned in the container of the pressure vessel.

Referring now to the drawings, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the pressure vessel comprises a container 11 of strong, rigid material such as steel or aluminum capable of withstanding the pressure to which the unit is subjected. The container is cylindrical along the major portion of the body thereof and has a hemispherical end 12 which has an opening 13 in which an outlet member 14 is mounted having a port 15 through which fluid such as oil under pressure may flow.

The cylindrical portion of the container 11 at the mouth thereof is of larger diameter than the main body of the container, defining a curved shoulder 16. The

mouth of the container 11 is designed to be closed by a substantially cup-shaped cover member :17 which as shown in (FIG. 1 has an axial opening .18 designed to receive a suitable air connection (not shown).

The side wall '19 of the cover member 16 defines a substantially cylindrical portion adapted to fit into the cylindrical mouth of the container lll.

As shown in FIG. 1, the outer periphery of the cover member is curved in vertical cross section as at 20 so that it may seat on the correspondingly curved shoulder 16 of the container. The portion 19a of said cylindrical portion 19 is of outer diameter substantially the same as the inner diameter of 'the container adjacent the curved shoulder 16 thereof so that it will fit snugly therein to center the cover member in the container. The lower portion 191) of cylindrical portion '19 is of outer diameter less than the inner diameter of the container to define a space therebetween to receive the periphery of a detormable partition 22. v

The partition =22 illustratively is a collapsible and expansible bladder having an enlarged mouth and which desirably is of resilient mate-rial such as rubber or synthetic plastic of like physical characteristic. The bladder defines two chambers in the pressure vessel, i.e., an oil chamber 23 which is in communication with the passage.

.clearly shown in FIG. 2, the outer surface of the bladder 22 has 'an annular outwardly extending flange 31 of length substantially equal to one-half the length of the bead 27 with the lower surface of the flange 31 defining substantially a right angle as at '32 with respect to the adjacent wall surface 33 of the bladder.

In order to support the lbladdery22, the lower cylindrical portion 19b of the cover member has two spaced annular grooves 3 4, 35 in its outer surface in which the annular beads 27, 28 respectively are positioned.

As is clearly shown in FIG. '1, the upper wall 36 of groove 34 is preferably inclined upwardly from the side wall 37 of the groove 34 and the length of the wall portion 38 intervening between grooves 34, :35 is less than that of the portion 29 of the bladder intervening between beads 27 and 28.

The beads 27 and 28 are of transverse thickness such that when the bladder 12 is mounted on the cover member I17 with the beads 27, 28 positioned in grooves 34, 35, respectively, prior to insertion of the cover member and bladder 22 into the container, as shown in FIG. 3, the

outer wall surface 33 of the bladder will extend transversely beyond the cylindrical portion |19a of the cover member 17. In addition, the annular flange '31 will also extend outwardly beyond the wall surface 33.

The transverse thickness of the wall portion (29 of line extending longitudinally of the cover member from the cylindrical portion 119a. I

With the arrangement above described, when .the depending portion 1-9 of the cover member 17 with the bladder 22 mounted thereon is forced into the container 11 until the rounded portion 20 of the cover member 17 is against the curved shoulder '16, it is apparent that the beads 27 and :28 will be transversely compressed. The cover member 17 is secured in position by bending over the rim 41 of the container from the position shown in broken lines in FIG. 1 to the position shown in full lines.

With the cover member 17 so mounted, the lower bead 28 will be compressed into groove 35 with the rounded end 42 of the depending portion 19 embedded into the inner wall of the bladder inwardly below the lower bead 28. Thus, the top surface 42' of end 42 defines an abutment for the undersurface 28' of bead 28, so that the latter will be hooked onto said rounded end 42. In addition, the upper bead 27 will be compressed in groove34 and will be deformed so that it will engage the inclined surface 36 of groove 34 substantially filling the latter.

The compression of beads 27 and 28 will also cause them to deform toward each other vertically so that the material 29 between the beads 27, 28 will be con voluted as shown at 45 in FIG. 1 and by reason of the spacing between the opposed wall of the container and the periphery of portion 38 of the cover member 17, the convoluted portion will be loosely supported in such space.

' defined by the bladder 22 is charged with gas under pressure and then the oil chamber 23 is charged with oil under pressure greater than that of the gas in chamber 25. As the oil flows into and out of the chamber 23 during use of the pressure vessel to dampen shock waves in a pressure line, for example, the bladder 22 will contact and expand exerting tension on the wall thereof. This tension will be exerted first on the lower bead 28 and possibly move it out of its groove slightly so as to break the fluid seal caused by the compression of the bead 28.

As a result, the gas under pressure in chamber 25 will react against bead 27. However, since the pressure exteriorly of annular groove, 34 is atmospheric and the gas pressure is much greater, the bead 27 will move upwardly toward the junction 47 between the inclined surface 36 of groove 34 and the adjacent wall of container 11 to wedge into such junction functioning as an O-ring.

By reason of the convolution of the material of the bladder between the beads 27, 28 and the hooking action imparted by bead 28 due to the groove 35 in which it is seated, the tension applied to the bladder wall would only cause slight movement of bead 28 in an axial direction. Although this could break the fluid seal effected by bead 28 by reason of the convolutions of the bladder material at 45, such material will yield to take up such tension thereby preventing movement of bead 27 and hence maintaining the seal at junction 47 to prevent leakage of the gas under pressure.

The movement of bead 28 above described also would break the oil seal between the outer periphery of the bead 28 and the wall of the container and as a result, the oil under pressure in chamber 23 would tend to leak along the outer surface of the bladder. However, by

reason of the sharp step 46 provided by the lower edge of flange 31, the oil under pressure would react against the shoulder 32 provided by said flange thereby forcing the outer surface of the bead 27 upwardly into junction 47 so that dependable sealing action will be provided to prevent leakage of oil from the container.

With the arrangement above described, a pressure vessel has been provided which by reason of the provision of two beads with a convoluted portion therebetween, one of which beads form the fluid seal in conjunction with an annular groove in the support member for the bladder and the other of which acts as a hooking member in conjunction with another annular groove in the support member, the convoluted portion will prevent transmission of even the slight displacement imparted to the hooked bead during use of the pressure vessel, to the sealing bead, so that dependable sealing action will be afforded.

As many changes could be made in the above construction and many apparently widely different embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope of the claims, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

A pressure vessel comprising a rigid hollow container having a mouth at one end and having a port at the other end, a cover member adapted to be positioned in the mouth of the container, said cover member having a port, means securely to retain said cover member in place, a flexible partition of resilient deformable material positioned in said container and intervening between said ports, said partition having two annular beads spaced apart a substantial distance and located near its periphery and positioned on the side of the partition adjacent the port in the cover member, said cover member having a head and a cylindrical portion extending inwardly from said head into the container and transversely spaced therefrom, said cylindrical portion having a pair of spaced annular grooves in its outer surfaceadapted to receive the annular beads on said partition, the groove remote from the mouth of the container defining an abutment for the associated bead, the spacing between the bottom of said grooves and the adjacent surface of the container, and the unstressed transverse thickness of said beads being such as to place both of said beads under lateral compression when assembled in said container, the bead adjacent the mouth of the container defining the sealing bead and the other bead the retaining bead, said sealing bead having a laterally outward ext-ending annular flange on its outer surface having its lower edge appreciably above the lower edge of said bead, the lower edge of said flange defining a relatively sharp step with respect to the outer surface of the partition material, whereby said flange portion and the portion of the sealing bead opposite thereto will be under greater compression than the remaining portion of said sealing bead, the unstressed length of the material between said annular beads being greater than the length of the cylindrical portion between said annular grooves and the thickness of the material between said annular beads being less than the width of the space between the portion of the cylindrical portion between the grooves and the adjacent surface of the container, whereby when the cover member and the partition are mounted in the container, and tension is imparted to the partition in use that tends to displace the retaining bead, the portion of the partition material between the beads will take up the movement of the retaining bead to prevent transmittal of such movement to the sealing bead.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,170,574 8/1939 Sauzedde 277-l78 X 2,397,248 3/1946 DeKiss 138-30 2,624,176 1/1953 Osborne 60'--54.5 2,742,785 4/1956 St. Clair 13830 X 2,757,689 8/1956 Knox 138-30 2,764,103 9/1956 Mercier 138-30 X 2,959,194 11/1960 Mercier 138-30 3,067,776 12/1962 Love 13830 M. CARY NELSON, Primary Examiner.

LEWIS J. LENNY, LAVERNE D. GEIGER, Examiners.

H. ARTIS, Assistant Examiner. 

